THIS is a landmark for the Gazette. It is our 125th anniversary - an occasion to be noted.

Our thanks go to al those staff who down the years have rendered loyal service in whatever capacity from publisher to tea-maker - and of course to our equally loyal readers and advertisers who have variously supported is through a century and a quarter and hopefully will continue to do so.

Without all of these people there would have been no Gazette, no recorder and champion of all things local, no major employer for over a century.

So much has altered. Our fore-runners who fashioned the Gazette with acumen and vision could not have foreseen how the newspaper - and the world - would change so dramatically. But we who have nothing less than the honour to continue the traditional sentiments that led to its creation in 1878 steadfastly remain loyal to the Bailey family's goal - albeit despite momentous ownership changes in the past few years.

The switch of a family-owned publication for more than a century, first to a growing national proprietor and then to an international one has meant changes. But the Gazette remains - and intends to remain - loyal to its roots. It is still the only weeky paid-for paper in the south of the traditional county Gloucestershire and much of the new, still young South Gloucestershire encompassing Thornbury and Severnside and the Yate/Sodbury environs. All are Gazette heartlands.

The Gazette began as a paper of record. It remains so though readers and advertisers rightly expect so much more nowadays. As well as chronicling the past, we endeavour to advise what lies ahead, offering the opportunity to contribute, and we try also at all times to meet a broad range of interests.

We are grateful to all those contributors who have responded to our request to share in our anniversary: our civic leaders and MPs, and our local historians who have most diligently spent hours researching and writing their observations of the growth of our districts over 125 years. It has been no task and inevitably choices and rejections have had to be made.

This supplement cannot reflect everything. What it can do is cement the link that exists between the Gazette and the communities it bids to serve, acknowledging that the newspaper is also an integral part of those communities _ we would have it no other way.

There have been a number of editors down the years charged with responsibility of producing weekly - and there has memorably been no break - editions varying from seven to currently three of the Gazette. I am the only person who has held the post twice - and I count it a double honour.

Some of my forebears were born, lived, worked and died in Gazette country so my affinity is understandably with it for more than purely professional reasons. My earnest hope is that the Gazette continues to be its voice for another 125 years and beyond, remaining always loyal to the aspirations of its founding fathers in 1878.